Fortified ruins...

Travelling to the parched, bushy outskirts of the kutch district heading to the very western most point of the Indian subcontinent you can't help but notice the change in scenery. 

The city is bustling with activity, business mostly and then there is the farming as you slowly make your way towards the outskirts. As you keep going further the landscape gets a bit wild and the old relics suddenly pop out of nowhere! 

It happens once then twice and well once again! Coincidences are there but most than twice well that's just planned... What are these old remnants of forts temples and fortified villages doing so far from civilisation? 

This reflections make you want to take a trip to the past in search of the answer and also the little excitement you get when you are prying into the life of the thakurs, owners and rajahs.

I head past the few remaining splendours of architecture to the abandoned fortified village of lakhpat. Situated at the very edge of the great rann of kutch, the village lies abandoned within fortified walls...

While reading the asterix comics you read about fortified villages.  The concept in itself is very familiar but none of that would prepare you for the sheer magnitude of an actual fortified village. The huge walls actually encompass a whole village, in today's age it would be like building a wall around any of our cities. Crazy as it may sound it actually is the fact! The intricate designs and ornately designed windows hold you spell bound at first and then a moment late you thank the people who made it such an impossible feat to pry out, hence leaving it to remain for you to glimpse at it. As you walk along the dusty street that was once a bustling market you secretly wish that you were in the period when the town flourished...

Admiring and visualising I make my way to an imposing house, kind of like a billionaires hous of today. This house is massive because it houses five huge houses within it. Again the intricate design on the windows reflect the taste and the opulence of the owner... But leave it be the one that really caught my fancy was the drainage... The drains were just an engineering marvel in itself. You don't actually see the waste flowing out but you instead see an incredibly awesome design in stone that hides the path the waste takes.

Before you start thinking I am a plumber I better move on. There are the government offices that collected tax, the parliament that settled disputes, the guard posts and other administrative building that fight for a perfectly symmetrical stand with the various places of worship.

India has always proved itself as a very religious country and the evidence is everywhere. Be it our folk lore, history or just stories, religion has played a major part. Here too the fortified walls encompass a mosque, a temple and a gurdwara.

As the sun begins its descent I stand on the fort walls looking into the distance and think back on why such a glorious place has fallen to ruins. The religious me look to the heavens and wonder why he had made it possible for the people to build such a magnificent  place only to let it go to ruins and a centuries time....

A hole in the wall

Right in the middle of the capital cit of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, is located the Thiruvananthapuram fort. The fort houses the wealthiest temple in the world and is also full of stories. 

The wall too tell of a wonderful story, one where the city was saved by the walls. Legend has it that Tipu Sultan the ruler of Mysore wanted to annex Thiruvananthapuram to his expanding empire after conquering the Malabar area. Catching wind of his plans to conquer the city the then ruler of Thiruvananthapuram asked his subjects to abandon the city taking with them all the food supply and water. The soldiers troop into the city and when the last of the soldiers marched in the king ordered the gates to be shut from the outside. 

So strong was the gates and the walls that the soldiers who went in were trapped in the fort with no means of food or water...

As the days go by their supplies dwindle and soon they are weak without having any food. At this opportune moment the ruler of the land make a hole in the wall and storm the enemy from outside. The weak soldiers of the conquering king gave up without a fight and thence the king restored peace in the region...

Today that hole has been made into a grand gate in memory of that victory. The fort walls, which originally had just four entrances today  houses five. 

Two states...

The dawn of Saturday was nothing out of the ordinary and yet it evolved to be an interesting start to an outstanding weekend. A weekend with cousins in coffee county, Coorg. With a normal day at the office and just an interview to go the day looked pretty much empty. After the interview was done, I took to the road, first filling gas and the disaster struck with the driver window not winding down. T a person the hills that's pretty mundane but to one in chennai it's grievous. Hot and dusty I had to cross ventilate the car by opening the rear right window and the front left window to let air.
Once I hit the road and just about crossed Poonamalle the second problem hit. A huge traffic jam. That block took over 2 hours to clear and what irritated the most was that the reason for the traffic jam is still unclear.... After that it was pretty much smooth sailing with the little difficulties cropping up once in a while.
Crossing the little hamlets that dot the smoothly laid out highways that stretch the length and breath of the state. Four hours later I found myself in the state capital of Karnataka, Bangalore. Bypassing Bangalore took about 30 minutes making the travel to Coorg all the more nearer. The usually wonderful drive to Mysore from Bangalore was spoilt with the unusually high number of speed breakers. Nearly all of them unmarked and virtually impossible to see in the dark. The speed reduced helped in watching several cars launching themselves from the speed breakers...  Bypassing Mysore and on the Coorg route the story was the same. The you hit the Hunsur to Gonikuppal route.
On this route you are actually struggling to find where the Tarmac is. Half the time you are driving in the dirt near the road looking at vestiges of what once was a proper road. The state and inter-state buses plying the road were having a field day while the cars that's flashed past them earlier on good road were hardly moving. Rocking from side to side, going into pot holes that is so big that the car is almost engulfed by the hole you wonder if the car will climb out. 30 Kms stretched to over 2 hours of driving. Speeds reduced from 80km/hr to hardly 10km/hr, ie; if you want my our car.
Reaching, Virajpet was a relief and all that remained of the journey was the final stretch to the estate. The road that I had least expected to be the worst turned out to be the best. Smooth as silk and with no traffic it was a fitting end to a hard days drive... Zipping past coffee plants, sleeping cows, the mist low on the wet road, sharp turns and virtually no potholes. Hmmm that last 20 minutes makes you miss driving in the hills...
Reaching home you reflect back on the roads traversed, two states, half a dozen toll booths, over 700kms, speed breakers and potholes, but nothing like reaching home safe. In one state the roads were a delight with straight smooth roads, the other was a horror for both the driver and the car. Testing everything from human endurance to machine tolerance.

Country roads take me home to the place I belong.